In 2006, Encinitas artist William Feeney’s work was accepted into the Athenaeum’s annual Juried Exhibition. His untitled piece won first place. More important, it caught the attention of then Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego curator Stephanie Hanor, the co-juror for that year’s show (with artist Roman de Salvo).

Hanor persuaded the museum’s other curators and Director Hugh Davies to give Feeney a show, which they did in 2007 as part of the “Circa Series” for emerging artists.

Even better, one of the museum’s donors purchased the artwork for the museum, and it’s now part of the permanent collection.

The point is, the Athenaeum’s annual juried show, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary, is doing what it’s supposed to do: bring attention to underexposed and sometimes underappreciated artists.

“This year it’s at a very high level,” said Erika Torri, the Athenaeum’s director, walking through the gallery as installation consultant Stephanie Scanga arranged and mounted the art on the walls and located several pieces of sculpture. “It looks like it’s been curated.” That’s high praise, as juried shows elsewhere can often resemble a disjointed potpourri of diverse styles, approaches and abilities.

For the anniversary show, 200 San Diego artists submitted approximately 1,000 works of art. Jurors Kathryn Kanjo (chief curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego) and Joseph Bellows (owner of the Joseph Bellows Gallery) selected 36 works of art from 23 artists and awarded James SOE NYUN ﻿first prize.

Whether someone will see his or someone else’s art and give them the opportunity to move to the next level is unknown, but the show serves another important function for the Athenaeum:

“It also has to do with bringing people, especially younger people, into the library,” Torri said. “In all of our programming, there are different people coming in who have never been to the Athenaeum before. We see how they like it. Some of them can’t believe something like this still exists, because it’s so old-fashioned.”

With a history dating back to 1899, the Athenaeum is arguably the oldest cultural institution in San Diego (a point that is only arguable depending on whether the San Diego Natural History Museum, founded in 1874, is considered a scientific or a cultural institution).

One of only 16 membership libraries in the U.S., it has gone through numerous incarnations, including a period (that ended in the late 1980s) in which the San Diego Public Library rented a portion of the facility as its La Jolla branch.

When Torri arrived in 1989, just as the city library was leaving and just before an expansion and reconfiguration of the Athenaeum’s spaces, she was given a mandate: balance the budget, find more donors, increase the membership and involve more volunteers.

“We were losing members as the library was becoming obsolete,” she said. “So, I realized I had to do more programming” to bring more people to the library.

The institution of jazz and chamber music, lectures and presentations, collaborations with other arts groups, an array of art classes, the development of a modest permanent collection (including distinguished holdings of “artist’s books”), and the inauguration of an exhibition program with the juried show as a vital component helped transform the institution.

During Torri’s 22-year tenure, the membership has increased from 900 to 2,300 and the operating budget from $70,000 to $1.5 million. While approximately 800 people use the library each month, 120,000 people visit the Athenaeum each year, including the several hundred people who filled the gallery for last week’s opening of the 20th anniversary juried show.

“The show’s prestige has grown,” Torri said. “Part of that is because I use big names as jurors. I also only take local people, and I do that on purpose, because I want the local administrators, curators and gallerists to see what’s available.”

Her list includes the top names from every significant San Diego arts organization and the major galleries (including Jose Tasende, Mark Quint and Ronald Stevenson).

With that group looking at your art, there’s always the possibility someone could see something they like. Then you are on your way.